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Full MeitY accreditation enables Indian public sector to deploy on Azure

Microsoft recently became one of the first global cloud service providers to achieve full accreditation by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for the Government of India. MeitY lists accredited cloud service providers in the government Cloud Services Directory, which enables public sector organizations to compare and procure those services.

Making government services available to citizens online is a key part of the Digital India programme which aims to “transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.” With the MeitY accreditation, referred to by MeitY as empanelment, Microsoft is now positioned to fully partner with India’s public sector organizations as they move to reshape India’s economic landscape.

Through Microsoft Azure, public sector organizations in India can now draw on a wide range of deployment models and service offerings, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service, Dev/Test, Virtual Desktop as a Service, and Managed Backup.

The MeitY accreditation was the result of a rigorous audit process conducted by the Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate, a government organization that provides quality assurance services. The evaluation framework is based on the work of the Meghraj Cloud Initiative, established by and for the Government of India, which governs the implementation of public sector IT services.

The full MeitY accreditation adds to the Azure compliance portfolio of more than 70 offerings, the largest in the industry, with more than 30 offerings specific to regions and countries around the globe, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, the EU, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the UK and US. The accreditation recognizes the robust nature of Azure controls, which are built on stringent, widely-recognized, and independently-verified standards, including ISO 27001 and 27018, SOC 1,2, and 3, PCI DSS, and CSA STAR. Azure’s compliance foundation of dozens of standards and hundreds of controls makes it easier for customers to build secure and compliant solutions.